It was during the Australian leg of One Direction’s mammoth global tour that Zayn Malik resolved to turn his back on fame.
Back then, in 2013, he was dating fellow popstar Perrie Edwards, whose band Little Mix were also on the road, and the young lovers both found themselves in Sydney.
Having been apart for weeks, they wanted to have a ‘date night’, only such was Zayn’s popularity that 1D fans – Directioners as they called themselves – followed him and the rest of the band everywhere they went. The only way for Zayn to see Perrie was to sneak in through her hotel’s laundry room.
For the singer, who like his fellow bandmates struggled with being in the limelight, the experience contributed to his decision to quit 18 months later in March 2015 – right in the middle of another world tour. He later cited ‘stress’ and the desire to be a ‘normal 22-year-old’.
This was not an isolated incident: Zayn, now 32, and his bandmates Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and the late Liam Payne, lived their late teens and early 20s as caged animals, unable to leave their hotel rooms to avoid a stampede of hysterical fans.
‘This made them hate being in the band,’ said one source who worked with them in their heyday. ‘It was actually traumatic at times.’
One Direction – Niall, Louis, Zayn, Liam and Harry – in London in 2011
And I’m told that it is this trauma that’s behind One Direction’s decision not to reunite, under any circumstances.
Not even when they were asked by the BRITs committee to come together for tonight’s event at London’s O2 Arena, to pay tribute to Liam, 31, who died in October after falling from a balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The answer was still a firm ‘no’. It wasn’t for the lack of trying, say BRITs insiders: ‘Those in charge thought it would be a great moment, if ever there was a chance of getting the band to reform, it was this year.’
Instead, I’m told, there will be a ‘special moment’ in the show dedicated to the troubled singer who had watched Niall perform on his solo world tour just a few days before his death.
‘There is no doubt that Harry, Zayn, Louis and Niall think about Liam all the time but there was no way they were going to do it,’ said the source. They’d showed ‘absolutely no interest’ in performing in tribute to their former bandmate, the source added.
‘They have happy memories, particularly of the early days, but towards the end things got pretty dreadful and they began to despise One Direction. There’s no way they would get back on that stage, even Liam’s death wasn’t enough.
‘You’ve got to remember that they were doing more than 120 gigs in a year at one point, flying around the world from hotel to hotel which they couldn’t leave. They went on the X Factor as young solo singers not thinking in a million years that they would be as big as the Beatles.
‘The attitude from Simon Cowell and the record label was that if they put the work in then they would never have to work again. The feeling among the group was that it was easy for their bosses to say.’
Since their split in January 2016, ten months after Zayn quit, the group have only been in the same room twice.
Once was at Liam’s funeral, at St Mary’s church in Amersham last November; the previous time was back in November 2016 when Simon Cowell issued a three line whip for them to get to the X Factor studios to support Louis, who was performing a solo set on the show following his mother’s death. Harry and Liam were ‘fuming’, but nevertheless, they travelled from the US to the London studio.
Former One Direction star Liam Payne, 31, died in October after falling from a balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina
They refused to go on stage, however. Instead it was a private meeting in Louis’s dressing room.
It would, of course, have been so poignant for One Direction to come together for this year’s BRITs, an event at which they were not only recipients of seven awards. It would also be a night, I think, they’d actually enjoy.
For several years I’d watched them, knocking back wine and enjoying every minute of being stars of the show. For two years in a row, I also saw them at the show’s after party at Mayfair’s Arts Club, working the room like children in a sweet shop with Cowell watching on like a proud dad.
After a while, however, the mogul’s enthusiasm for their hard work wore thin among the band members. Moreover, there was a feeling that despite making £30 million each from their five years as the world’s biggest boyband, it was damaging their lives beyond repair.
‘Harry and Liam would actually comment sometimes that they would rather have been at university,’ said a friend of the band. ‘Instead they basically became really f***** up. Some turned to drugs. It was pretty awful at times.’
It is not just their bad memories that have prevented the band from coming together, it would also be fair to say that relations between them are still strained. Towards the end of their time together, there were rumours that such were the levels of animosity within the group, that they would fly on two separate private jets.
Today, while Louis and Zayn remain close, having been a ‘bit of a trio’ with Liam, there is little love lost between them and Harry.
Even at Liam’s funeral last November, Harry wasn’t seen with any of his former bandmates, instead choosing to arrive with his friends James Corden and television producer Ben Winston. Meanwhile Zayn and Louis were seen deep in conversation outside the church.
And as for Niall, 31, sources say that he too has ‘moved on’ – arguably to bigger and better things as he now runs a talent agency for golfers, particularly bringing on women into the sport, as well as performing as a solo artist.
‘He saw the band for what it was and took what he could from that time and built the rest of his life,’ the source told me. ‘Niall has just got on with it,’ I’m told, and generally ‘leads a very under-the-radar, quiet life.’
Then there is Harry, the 31-year-old heart-throb who signed a huge record deal which dwarfed the others back in 2016.
After much negotiation he went with Sony label Colombia, reportedly worth an eye-watering $80 million. As well as having number one hits, such as As It Was and Watermelon Sugar, he has also tried his hand at acting, winning roles in war movie Dunkirk and psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling. At the last count, he was said to be sitting on a personal fortune of £175 million.
‘He is head and shoulders above the others in terms of his success,’ says a band insider.
‘His life is just so different, almost unrelatable to the others these days.’
While Harry remains one of the world’s most popular and lucrative popstars, today Zayn – who has a four-year-old daughter Khai from his relationship with American model Gigi Hadid – lives an almost reclusive life on a farm in Pennsylvania.
Louis, 33, meanwhile, who has also had some success as a solo artist, exists very much under the radar in London.
‘Getting back together would drag up the hurt,’ says one source. ‘They don’t see the point in doing that, certainly not at the moment and probably never.’
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